The company, which sells Coca-Cola drinks in 28 countries mostly in Europe, said it expected the improvement to continue this year with "further economic growth and healthy inflation."

"Europe, without Russia, is coming out of deflation to healthy levels of inflation, which going forward, will give us opportunities for incidental smart pricing," Chief Executive Zoran Bogdanovic told reporters.

In Russia, he said he expected inflation to stay around the mid-single digit level, saying this would moderate pricing but could help volumes. In Nigeria, another big market for the bottler, inflation was expected to stay around the mid-teens, he said.

Still, the company expects higher volumes across its business, with Russia and Nigeria returning to volume growth.